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International Phonetic Alphabet Symbols

The following provides a brief guide to IPA symbols used in English. The capitalized keywords are from J. C. Wells’ Accents of English. The symbols correspond to the sounds of the underlined portions of the example words.

The pairs ə, ʌ (comma, STRUT) and ɚ, ɝ (letter, NURSE) can be considered allophones.

Syllabic. If your font doesn’t place accents correctly, the vertical bar below may not be centered on the letter.

British Variants

IPA

Example

IPA

Example

IPA

Example

ɑ

BATH

ɜ

NURSE

ɑ

START

ɒ

LOT, CLOTH

ɪə

NEAR

ɔ

NORTH, FORCE, THOUGHT

əo

GOAT

ɛə

SQUARE

ʊə

CURE

Stress

Stress is marked before the affected syllable.

IPA

Example

IPA

Example

ˈ

primary stress mark

ˌ

secondary stress

IPA

The exact pronunciation of words may vary significantly according to the dialect of the speaker. A broad transcription is used here: eaten is rendered as /ˈitn̩/, not /ˈiːʔn̩/; in general, length marks (ː) are not indicated.